Revision as of 10:43, 19 December 2008

The great 2009 Haskell logo contest

The Haskell logo has changed over time, and the current "new" logo reflects the
advanced features of Haskell. However, it is looking rather dated, and doesn't necessarily reflect the mature Haskell we have now.

So, time to find a new logo. Something reflecting the modern emphasis of
Haskell on purity and simplicity.

Please submit logo-sized (not overly large) versions of your logo with optional text, with a preferably white background (such as for use on haskell.org).

Please submit your entries here, and attach your name to them please. To be eligible,
they will need to be visible on this page (e.g. uploaded, or link to the image). The image should be freely available (a suitable freely distributable license). Entries not displayed here won't be eligible.

The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2008, after which the top few submissions will be voted on by the community to decide a winner!

Playing off a recent Haskell-Cafe thread, in which programming languages were compared to religions, and Haskell was equated to Taoism. The slogan makes at least a little sense: it obviously goes with the logo, and 'Duals' are important to Cat theory, which influences Haskell strongly. SVG available. Font is Lucida Calligraphic, a less ubiquitous calligraphic font might be better.

The main font is Diavlo (free). The lambda is in Candara, which I believe ships with Vista
and/or XP. Not sure of the licensing there. If there's significant interest in this, I'll redo it as a vector graphic.

A slightly different take on the Haskell logo, as the lambda-in-a-circle looks a bit too much like the Half Life logo for my taste. This
one references monads instead of lambda calculus. Three possible slogans, emphasizing the fun that comes from programming in Haskell.
Number 2 and 3 also reference function composition. Number 3 is my personal favourite.

Update: a combination of my two logos on a t-shirt. This time with function arrows to indicate the causal relationships: because Haskell is
pure, it's simple. Because it's simple, it's fun.

Not sure about the colour. I tried to pick the purple from the current logo. Although the lower lambda is rotated there is
historic precedence for other forms of the letter. The lambda takes the angle from
the 'k'. Font is News Gothic. Feel free to play with the concept. Rk 11:13, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The general idea is that it's just "Haskell" but with w lambda instead of the a. The font here is Myriad Pro but this would work with any
good sans-serif font. It's color-agnostic, so it can be easily printer, presented as white on black or changed to a different color.

The idea for this wordmark is to modify A to resemble λ and through this tie together the "Haskell" to the "Lambda". Modified A also works well as a standalone logo:

Note that any logo based on the unmodified λ symbol may look ambiguous to the people outside of Haskell community. While the λ in the context of programming languages is clearly associated with functional programming, it is a lowercase Greek L and so it's reasonable for an outsider to associate it with Lisp, and not Haskell.

PS. I just scrolled up and saw BONUS'es entry (14:40, 16 December 2008). While its idea is close, I think using pure λ in place of an A doesn't work because it effectively turn the name into H-L-skell.

Contact me for SVG. Font is not currently free, but I designed it, so this can change if it becomes "the Haskell font". I think it shows some of the elegance that Haskell has. If you like the font but can put it with a better logo, go ahead. --MaxRabkin 04:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the best way to represent the pure, functional nature of Haskell is with a pure and functional logo! Something modernist, minimalist, clean and simple. I'd prefer not to put highlights of the language's syntax in the logo - that's remarkably concrete for a language good at abstraction. Even lambdas etc. should be slightly hidden - those who know what it's about can see them, and everyone else doesn't think 'what's that funny symbol?'. For the font, again, something functional like a light Helvetica or Univers.

So, I thought I'd have a go at a few variations. I'm not convinced it's worked, but there you go. I've shamelessly ripped off tanimoto's idea. Sgf 08:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Sgf, I really like your logos and I think you captured my idea much better than I could do. I especially like the red one, a bit Escher-esque. I wonder if we could turn the blue one into something that looks more like a snowflake than it currently does. Thanks. tanimoto 10:43, 19 December 2008 (UTC)